Word: palestinian
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...Obama Administration's latest attempt to kick-start Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations hit an unexpected setback after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during an Oct. 31 visit, praised as "unprecedented" Israel's efforts to limit construction of settlements on Palestinian-claimed land (above). The comment sparked an outcry from Arab leaders, who accused the Administration of backtracking on previous demands that Israel institute a complete freeze. Though Israelis have agreed to resume peace talks without preconditions, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to return to negotiations until all settlement construction is halted...
...American living in Israel described as a Jewish extremist was arrested and charged with a decade-long campaign of murder and violence against Arabs, gays and other groups. Israeli authorities said Yaakov (Jack) Teitel, 37, confessed to fatally shooting two Arabs in 1997 in retaliation for Palestinian suicide bombings. His alleged crimes also include stabbing and wounding an Arab man he believed had made a pass at him and bombing the homes of a left-wing professor and a family that belonged to a messianic Jewish sect; the professor and a 15-year-old boy were wounded...
Netanyahu has used the Palestinian refusal to engage in unconditional talks as an opportunity to blame them for the impasse in solving the conflict, noting that Abbas spent last year in talks over a two-state deal with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert without ever mentioning a settlement freeze. Why are the Palestinians suddenly making such a fuss about a settlement freeze now? the Israelis ask, as if this signifies a hidden agenda. The Obama Administration appeared to take Netanyahu's side last weekend, pressing the Palestinians to drop the precondition for talking. But the Palestinians point out that they weren...
...Obama may have backpedaled on the settlement freeze in the belief that the Israelis had gone as far as they are willing to go, and that no peace can be made without them. His problem, of course, is that no peace can be made without the Palestinians either, and that Abbas' willingness to make do with whatever was on offer from Washington until now has made him an increasingly marginal figure among his own people. Even if the U.S. manages, once again, to cajole Abbas into acting against his own better judgment and restart talks, the achievement will...
...With Netanyahu's settlement-freeze defiance having demonstrated the limits of the Administration's ability to sway the Israeli government, Obama now faces the uncomfortable reality that this has also accelerated the decline of U.S. influence with the Arab states and mainstream Palestinian moderates. Having made resolving the Middle East's most intractable conflict a top foreign policy priority, the Administration now needs the symbolic resumption of talks simply to signal progress. The message from the White House to both sides over the past week has emphasized the urgency of doing that. Unfortunately, given the gulf between the demands...